What is your Musical Heritage?

Subject: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: lloyd61
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 11:58 AM

Musical Heritage

As I look back over the years I can see how my passion for music has been fostered by adults in my life. To start with, my dad, who played a mandolin, in a Scandinavian church String Band. The leader of the String band Jennie Reese, was my mentor. I wrote about her in "A Gig to remember # 4". Next was a Fiddle Player in Ferryville Wisconsin by the name of Fey Allen. His daughter is still playing his music in that area.

I played Bass in an orchestra and in a Bluegrass band, but my first love has always been the acoustic guitar.

Last but not least, growing up in Chicago I was raised on Blues, Soul, and Classical Music with the Old Town School of Music thrown in the mix.

My regret is that I have not develop the playing skills that I should have. But, as I look back I am at the skill level of the my mentors, so that must mean I did not reach high enough, or it was not in me. My advice to young people, reach high and TAKE LESSIONS.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 02:24 PM

Dad, mom, sisters and brother; all came before me, all made music of all kinds. Aunties and uncles, grandma.

Grade school, junior high and senior high piano, violin and orchestra teachers.

More later, Lloyd. Glad you started this one.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 02:30 PM

Well, Dad only liked brass band music (army career mainly) and mother likes Country and Western, and Adge Cutler and the Wurzels.. They did start to get a bit towards the barn dance stuff, but dad died last year and mother emigrated, so I can't ask. I guess I went for greasy biker chick stuff, as a kick back..... My heritage I suppose is a mix of Meat Loaf, Status Quo, Mozart and the Wurzels.....

No wonder I turned out the way I did.

LTS

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: lloyd61
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 02:43 PM

LTS..

What is "greasy biker chick stuff"?

Lloyd

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 03:07 PM

My parents were into regular ol' Top 40 stuff, but my father had a penchant for Oldies, even in the 70's when they weren't that old. When I was about a year old, my father who was attending mechanics school in the USMC, through a friend, got hooked on country music. This was in 1980, and "Urban Cowboy" had caused a boom in country music popularity. When my father heard "A Country Boy Can Survive" by Hank Williams Jr. on the radio when I was 4, he bought the album because of that song. The album was a great success, and now my mother became a Hank Jr. junkie, and we have his albums from 1980-1989. So Hank Jr. and subsequently Hank Sr. came into play, as well as Ronnie Milsap, C.W. McCall, Buck Owens, and Johnny Horton. Also the great country music on the radio in the early 80's had a huge influence on me.

When I was 8, I discovered classical music, had a falling out with it, and finally returned to it as a fanatical classical nut when I was 16. Ragtime & dixieland & swing music followed later when I was 17.

When I was 18, I discovered Andrew Lloyd Webber, and instantly became enamoured with musicals (but only the more modern ones). Later that year, the "Flash Gordon" soundtrack by Queen launched me into rock music, which I had never listened to before. 70's rock is still my favorite period in musical history. It was there that I fell in love with The Electric Light Orchestra, and I have all but 4 of their albums. They are my favorite music-makers in all music.

When I was nineteen, my passing interest in bagpipe music exploded with "The Thistle & Shamrock." Now I am a total Celtic fiend, looking for Celtic music anywhere & everywhere. Now I am writing my own Celtic songs and tunes, my catalog number is up to 58 pieces.

Well, that's my musical heritage, and I still haven't forgot the earlier music I liked, so now I can enjoy music more, and have a grander scope of the world of music.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Michael K.
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 03:31 PM

No one in my family is musical. Not my parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents.........so I guess I get mine from ''the man upstairs''. ('must have taken a shine to me when I was still in the womb.)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 03:46 PM

My grandfather was a Sligo fiddle player (contemporary and neighbour of Michael Coleman and co.), my dad played the mandolin and mouth organ, Irish and many other things. I grew up in London in an Irish household and heard both the Irish music round me and the pop music of the 50s and 60s. I first started on the guitar at about 10 and shortly after on the banjo and mandolin, a mixture of Irish, folk and rock right from the start. Nearly 40-odd years on I'm still playing exactly the same sort of eclectic mix with other gathered influences thrown in for good measure! Guess I'm a pretty mixed up type of guy altogether!

mcmoo

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Llanfair
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 03:53 PM

My ancestors were Welsh, it's genetic.
I don't know how you explain that I'm tall and blonde, perhaps the vikings were responsible.
Whatever, I love to sing. Hwyl, Bron.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: sophocleese
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 04:09 PM

I learned recorder at school and at home. For a while our whole family would play. My parents always sang hymns in the car but played classical, Beatles and other contemporay stuff on the stereo. As a teenager I listened to Chris De Burgh, FM, Led Zeppelin and the Sex Pistols as well as some radio stuff. I always went to the festival of Friends in Hamilton and loved the music there. My first experience of choir singing was when I was 17 and joined a Madrigal Consort. Somehow out of the confused influences prevalent in our family three of us are following music to some degree. One plays Medieval music for fairs in Germany, one plays afro-cuban percussion and I sing trad. English and Scottish tunes with any other tune I like. If I'd had the confidence as a teenager I would have loved to be in a rock band.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: MMario
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 04:51 PM

I found out this summer, that my Dad's branch of the family tree includes several opera singers a wee bit back...course that hasn't really influenced me because I didn't know about it for 45 years....The only music I REMEMBER from that side of the family is Dad whistlin' while he worked.... Gram played piano and a bit of organ, my mother was an excellent audience, and spun a mean platter....most of the music I remember as a child came through them. But we also had public concerts a LOT as I grew up, and people were expected to sing along....

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: bunkerhill
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 05:01 PM

I'm very new to Mudcat (and thankful for the serendipity that led me here) and had forgotten until reading other threads how much a part of my musical heritage are Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Homer & Jethro, the Rooftop Singers. Thanks for the reminders. Burl Ives occupies a less than major, but recurring place. I'm fairly sure my parents were fans of his radio program. I sang along to "Big Rock Candy Mountain" in grade school years (picture the reaction if a 2nd grader today joined in on "the buzzin' of the bees in the cigarette trees..") and from teen years remember "Mr. In-between." In my 20s, read something somewhere that implied he had been a snitch for Joe McCarthy, which inspired a two-decade Burl boycott that segued into soul-searching when I saw a picture of Pete Seeger (who didn't talk to HUAC and paid for it) performing with Ives not too long before Ives died. If there's some lesson here about separating artists from their politics, I'm not sure that I've fully come to grips with it.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Mudjack
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 06:29 PM

My folks listened to a lot of radio in my earliest memories that aired Hank Williams, Lefty Frizell, Hank Thompson, Hank Snow. My folks were Okie transports to California. Rock and Roll fifties were a peer pressure thing and I always had a yearning for early C&W. Then the sixties hit me with FOLK, protest songs, meaningful songs, and I just can't seem to shake the stuff.
Mudjack

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: jeffp
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 06:53 PM

I was fortunate to be born into a musical family. My mother plays the piano, teaches recorder, and is about to retire after 10 years directing the handbell choir at her church. She also has sung in church choirs as long as I can remember. My father played baritone horn in school and when I started playing the trombone, he bought a trumpet and we would play duets in the living room, accompanied by my mother on the piano. He has been playing in Mom's handbell choir for the last several years.

My sister started playing the guitar in high school, in the early 60's. She played folk music (PP&M, Kingston Trio, that sort of thing) with friends. At the time, I was heavily involved with classical music and hardly even listened to rock. Now she teaches guitar and piano in West Virginia.

As for myself, I played trombone from 4th grade until my 1st year of college. In high school, around 1970, I started learning guitar because it was tough to get girls carrying a trombone to parties. I tried to get into rock at that time, without much success. In college, I was introduced to John Prine's music and found that not only did I like it, I could play it, working it out by ear. What a revelation! A few years after I left school, I was introduced to a guy who played incredible 12-string guitar, wrote some of his own music, and taught me to play rock and roll. I still play in a band with him after 15 years. In return, I have provided him with some bluegrass and folk influence, making for an interesting blend.

My sister introduced me to traditional irish music several years ago, and I've added that to the mix. I now play guitar (electric and acoustic), bass, pennywhistle, bodhran, and fiddle. I also sing.

I can't imagine what life would have been like without music, and I don't want to try.

jeffp

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 09:20 PM

My musical background consisted of............
Listening to the ballerina in my jewelery box go round & round.

My Dad's 8 Track playing Johnny Cash over & over.

Oh ya, my Dad sponsored a band called the Silver Dollars. They played in local bars & occationally played at penitentiaries.
My Dad loved country music
I miss my dad

BB

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Marion
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 09:54 PM

Mom plays piano, bell choir, and used to play accordion. Dad sings and does music therapy in nursing homes (though he'd never dream of calling it that). One sister plays piano, recorder, pennywhistle, and fantasizes about bagpipes. One sister plays recorder. One sister has no interest in making music. I now focus on fiddle on guitar, and intermittently play piano, pennywhistle, and guitar, and sometimes contemplate playing the bagpipes.

Our parents bought piano lessons for the two of us who were interested for as long as we were interested. Our family actually never played together much in the living room, though at various times the hymn-sings in old folks' homes would be a family outing (with Mom or one of us daughters on piano).

Unfortunately dancing was a sin in my parents' home, so my sister and I are late discovers of Irish and other folk dancing.

There's a fiddle under my grandma's bed I dream of getting my hands on someday. My grandma and great-grandpa were fiddlers, and great-great-grandpa was a violinist, so it's my ancestral instrument, but unfortunately I have the wrong last name so my uncle is the heir apparent. The miserable thing is that my uncle doesn't play, and when he tried to learn once, he PAINTED fret lines onto its neck, and he GLUED the tuning pegs to the head ("so they wouldn't slip"... they're supposed to be adjustable dammit!) under the apparent belief that the fine tuning pegs were all he'd ever need. Sigh... what a vandal...

Good idea for a thread,

Marion

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Marion
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 09:59 PM

One more thing... my natural sister and I both at least dabble in several instruments, and consider music an important element in our lives, whereas the sister who plays nothing and the sister who plays recorder once every blue moon are adopted from Korea... coincidence? Ancestral memory? Maybe their ancestral musical memories got confused by hearing Western music rather than Korean music in their childhoods... interesting thought.

Marion

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Gary T
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 10:59 PM

Mom played piano, and I took lessons for 2 years starting at 10 years old. I always loved "Peter and the Wolf"--still do. Born in '51, heard a fair amount of 50's rock from my older brother and sisters playing records and the radio. Didn't take to the Beatles at first, but slowly grew to appreciate them--a lot! They're still my favorite band and I still think highly of many of their songs. Unlike some Beatles fans I know, I don't feel the White Album is their "best". I'm quite taken with many of the songs on "The Beatles Second Album", "Beatles 65", "Beatles VI", and "Rubber Soul" (note for our overseas friends--these are the U.S. album names, for some reason Capitol Records here felt they had to group the songs differently from the European albums). In the 60's I loved British rock, tolerated soul music, and enjoyed oldies (50's rock). You couldn't have paid me to listen to country music. Towards the end of my college days, I started thirsting to hear the folk music my sister had been listening to in the 60's--Ian and Sylvia were her favorites. A little later, I heard Kris Kristopherson ("Silver Tongued Devil" album) and liked it. Lost interest in rock of the era and gravitated to country music. Got frustrated on camping trips when the person with the guitar didn't know the songs I wanted to hear, and got a cheap used guitar. It was pretty crappy and really cheap, but I was so motivated I played it anyway, learning chords from diagrams in a book. Realized if the book had a song in a key I couldn't play or sing in, I could transpose--thank God for those piano lessons! I'm not much of a guitarist, I strum chords to accompany my singing. Repertoire includes an odd mixed bag of folk (traditional, 60's style, Irish, etc.), 50's and 60's rock, country, pop, old standards, and stuff you don't know what to call. Singing is my main hobby. If I had to choose between losing my sight or my hearing, I'd have to give it some long, hard thought.

Oh, and I never give long-winded explanations. (Hah!)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Potato Fingers
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 11:23 PM

Growing up in Bakersfield means Merle Haggard. Buck was the bubblegum of country: Merle reached deep down the dark recesses and pulled out some gems.When the Dead covered Momma Tried, it all made sense. Although we were too young, we knew the Blackboard, Tex's Barrel House, and Trout's, still a stone cold working class bar in Oildale. Both of the local legends logged time in said dives. Clarence White came to town to record on the Guitars of Bakersfield LP put out on Jasico Records. Put this together with my mom and grandmother's stride piano playing, my brother Mike's late night acid ramblings on the B3, a harp guitar case full of kilos from Santa Cruz, and seeing Jimi at the Civic Auditorium when I was thirteen, it's a wonder I can remember how to play Music for a Found Harmonium. The guitar made it happen for me, and still does.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Rex
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 12:19 PM

My mother played hawaian guitar but that was before my time. She would still sing around the house. I of course got started in the usual rock and roll garage band and played at the county fair. In time I found out about many folks from two generations earlier that played barn dances in the 40's. While the barn dances were done they were still going playing in their homes. I would track them down and join in. One fellow, a scotsman named Lloyd Weddell took some time and showed me how to play the fiddle. He would make log cabins, was a good blacksmith, made a few fiddles and mandolins and taught me quite a bit about traditional woodworking and metalworking. In later years I got to know a fiddler named John Clendennen. He came out of Texas and played with a group called the Lone Star Playboys that toured around the West and were on the radio in the 40's. Anybody heard of them? (Not the other Playboys with Bob Wills.) Well John was pretty ill with cancer but I was fortunate to come around for a couple of years and work on tunes he knew. I wish those two were still around.

Rex

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Vixen
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 01:39 PM

My dad plays harmonica, and used to write songs for me when I was little. My mom liked all the folk music from the 60s, as well as a lot of other kinds of music. She made music tapes for our boys in Vietnam under the name of "Stateside Suzi." Two of her sisters played guitar and sang. I always had music around, even though I have bad ears.

V

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 02:25 PM

My grandmother used to sing..."If I had the wings of an angel, over these prison walls I would fly...."....over & over & over! That's all, just those two lines. I took up clarinet in the 6th grade and played in school bands, but never found my 'place' till the folk scare of the 60s

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 02:39 PM

My dad played clarinet in his youth and then got responsible. Mom played piano and accordion, had her own radio show in the 40s and led "Dottie and the DEBS", Canada's first "all girl" big band. Don't think either of them thought much of Woody or Leadbelly!
Rick

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 03:35 PM

I lived in Naples when I was small, it wasn't long after the war had ended, and the streets were still full little street bands and mandolin orchestra, as well as those little club bands with electric accordians and twangy guitars, playing that peculiar Italian tango music--The men working in the streets sang, the fruit vendors--and the radio and TV full of "Arrivederci, Roma", and Pesca, Pesca, Pascual" and "Marcellino Pan E Vino"--

My father's job with the State Department ended, so we came back stateside to a cold, grey, midwestern auto town, filled with automotive factories, a lot of the workers were from the South,the music that people listened to was hardcore country, or hardcore rhythm and blues--

I loved any kind of music, as long as it was fun, and learned guitar to play in a Beatles/Rolling Stones inspired garage band, only to be waylaid by The Weavers, Pete Seeger, Dylan, etc--

I played cornet in the marching band, and one of the drummers turned out to be an organ player in a James Brown copy band, he snagged me, and I ended up learning the horn parts to all of that mid 60's R&B stuff, SoulFinger, I feel Good, etc.--

They all went to Nam, but I went to college, studied music composition and started a heavy rock club band--it broke up, and I went back to folk music, playing coffeehouses and bars, with an odd combination of original humorous and parody material, old folksongs and old country and blues songs--

Got caught in the country rock craze, moved to California, fell in with a a bunch of jazz/latin musicians. some of whom also played (and were) Hawaiian--Started a little group that played with a group of Polynesian dancers--

Went from there to the stage band for an International Folkdance Ensemble--and learned how to play all the kinds of folk music that I hadn't played already--

Came back East, started another Folkdance band--then started teaching guitar, because I knew how to play a little bit of just about any dammed thing anybody wanted to play--

My father's side of the family were musicians, back as far as anyone could remember(Irish and Italian)--

I've dragged you all through this protracted accounting because I believe there is a message in my life for all aspiring young musicians, (Banjo Bonnie, please take note!!) When you hear something you like, concentrate all your energy and every waking hour into soaking it in, and learning to play it--join or start a band, hustle gigs, play, and then, just as it is starting to fall together, diump it all completely and start from scratch with some other kind of music that you like--it's worked for me!!

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 04:50 PM

M.Ted, who says you dragged me through your protracted account. I just slid down to the bottom of your posting to get to the good stuff.
You have captured my interest, so I'm going to go back and look more closely at your musical biography.
Thanks for thinking of me.
I understand what you saying. Your advice makes good sense
BB

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 04:55 PM

I hope you realize I was just kidding Ted. I read your entire posting the first time I saw it. I really did.
BB (who was born drenched in guilt)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 06:18 PM

BB,

I'm glad you read it all the first time, because there is a test on Friday.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 06:22 PM

That was a joke, there really is no test on Friday. I mean, there would be, but, like who would care enough about me to actually study? But then again, it's hard to say--possibly everyone has been eager for tidbits about my life and times, because through my little postings, they have developed a genuine fondness, and interest, but on the other hand, perhaps people have become tired of my protracted responses--it's difficult to say--

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 06:24 PM

That was a joke too--my "Ed Grimly" impression--

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 06:33 PM

If I had played the music I heard from my family I'd be a mute ! I did it myself--with a lot of help from my friends---the people I made my mentors.

That said, mom did play piano a bit. Nothing else. Nobody else in the family was at all musical.

One other thing. Someone here said that Pete didn't talk tu HUAC. Well, he DID talk to HUAC. He answered some of their questions and then told them that they had no right to ask him some questions where he thought they violated his (and others) privacy. Then he refused to answer those. That went against the rules. You are not allowed, supposedly, to pick & choose which ones you want to answer. If Pete had taken the 5th ammendment on everthing, he would've been within the rules as laid out by HUAC. Instead he was held in contempt of congress---jailed---and later exhonerated.

Art

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 07:30 PM

Don't be silly MTed, your postings aren't long & drawn out (had to look up protracted in my dictionary).
Why, I bet you could test me on some of your postings. Many of you've contribution on music threads I've printed for future reference.

BB

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Laura
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 10:12 PM

From my dad: Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash, George Morgan and old time fiddle tunes From my mother- Andrews sisters From my oldest sister- Black Sabbath From my brother- Eagles, Alleman Brothers, Lynrd Skynrd From my other sister- Little River Band From my piano/voice teacher- all classical.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Terry Allan Hall
Date: 03 Dec 99 - 08:01 PM

Well, my Mom was Concert Mistress of the Ft. Worth All-City Orchestra (violin).

My dad is a very good whistler.

My Paternal Grandfather, who put me on the "Road to Ruin" by encouraging my muse, played very good tenor sax and Dixieland banjo in the 30's and 40's with people like Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman.

When my Aunt Cathy married my Uncle Jack, along with him came all his brothers, dad and uncle, who play bluegrass and "string swing" and always wanted to show me what "real music" was!

I was truly blessed by being able to be around ALL of these good folks.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Dec 99 - 07:04 PM

Way way back, reply to Lloyd61 (is that age or chest measurement....) a greasy biker chick is one who would rather be on a Harley or Goldwing than sitting in the folk club/classroom/office/wherever.... I used to ride on a Suzuki 500, and dreamt of going out with the vicars' son who had a Vincent.... Saw a Valkyrie a few months back and damn nearly ploughed the car into a crash barrier, because I was drooling at the Valk. Altime ultimate dream is to do a ride in the states with the wind in my hair, but only for a little while, because a) I'm a wuss about wearing a helmet, they really are lifesavers, and b) it would take HOURS to comb my hair out again!!!

Greasy Biker Chick music was anything with a skull or other bones on the record cover (I suppose that would include my present copy of 'Danse Macabre' then....)or that had more bass than lyrics. Oh, and the lyrics are about sex, bikes, death, sex on bikes, death on bikes, death after sex, sex after bikes, sex, bikes and sex. With the odd bit of drinking thrown in. Any group that used y instead of i in its name, or were known by only one syllable - 'Quo, Zepp', that sort of thing.

And me a churchwarden.....

LTS

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 04 Dec 99 - 09:53 PM

There are so meny different things I think of as familey insperation...As a kid my grandmother was a concert pionist.retired by the time I was around but her passion is still in the air...My father was a Chicago man born in 1905 and had a true love for New Orleans jaz and what happened in CHICAGO IN THE 20'S AND 30's and he was lucky enough to be in New Yourk for the 40's and 50's..Also we had some friends who had sanba parties every Christmis eve that went on long into xmas morning {I got to play conga from 7 years on} Music and dance were sanonimus {SP?} But I would say my awakening came when I started trying to keep up with Tude Tanguay and Art Carlson who had the most wonderful square dance band here in north western Connecticut..They were as close as you could find to indiginus or truly local music... They had played here for almost 30 years by the time I was a youngster following them aruond..They would start of in G or C and for the fun of it end up falling through F to B flat just to see if you would keep up...They were true to thier county and their audience and will never be fogotten as long as any of us who knew them are alive... All the best , Guy

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Dec 99 - 10:15 PM

By the way lloyd, greasy biker chicks also have hairy chests....very interesting phenomena.

Spaw (Honda Sabre 1100)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: lloyd61
Date: 04 Dec 99 - 10:49 PM

OK, Liz I think understand, but what is a churchwarden?, and Sex on bikes? At my age (61) you would have to draw me a picture. I guess I have lived a very Boring sheltered life. In younger days I rode a little, and always wanted to ride behind a Gal. Boy, I would have hung on tight. Liz, you got me thinking! I think I'l take a cold shower and watch the new on TV.

Good night

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Dec 99 - 11:04 PM

Aw lloyd, it could still be great. Imagine youself behind Squeaks. She's dressed in black leathers astride a Phalloblaster 1000, speed shifting thru the gears at ten grand, the pavement slices past in a blur, the scream of the wind in your ears and its force is ever widening the grin on your face, her long, blonde hair flowing out to your left, her chest hair flowing out to your right......DAMN. Better go get another shower lloyd.

Spaw

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: lloyd61
Date: 05 Dec 99 - 01:23 AM

TO LATE! Phew....

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Pixie
Date: 05 Dec 99 - 09:35 AM

Musical Heritage? My paternal grandmother came from Scotland to PEI, and was a singer of the operatic persuasion (she died before I was born), and my mother also possessed a wonderful singing voice, which only my oldest sister inherited. What happened to the rest of us kids, I don't know, but we all love music of a wide variety. My passion is Celtic, bluegrass, vocal harmonies, acoustic, but also like blues, ethnic music, etc. Learned to play basic guitar to feed the hunger, and its been downhill since then......

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: BarbaraLynn
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 12:04 AM

I am quite new to Mudcat, have been reading here a lot for about a week, and thought this thread might be the right place to introduce myself as a new member from North Carolina.

My mother would be the person to credit with my early interest in music. In the 1940's, she sang for a while with Tex Beneke, and when I was growing up she sang with the church choir and always soloed at the Christmas service with "What Child Is This?"

Our family sang in the car when driving literally anywhere, songs like "The Old Oaken Bucket", and "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" were popular favorites. And it became a nightly ritual for my two younger sisters and I to sing together while we cleared the table and washed the dinner dishes. We still sing together when we actually are together in one place, we favor an Andrews Sisters type of harmony and will apply it to anything we can think of.

When I was in high school, I had the pleasure of knowing Allan C. (now of the Mudcatters), and it is he whom I must credit for inspiring in me a love of folk guitar. I have been playing the same 6 chords now for over thirty years (not Allan's fault I only know 6...).

In the 1970's while living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, I was part of a trio for a while, The Trinity Singers. We did a couple of weddings, sang special music for various churches when the choirs were out for the summer, and put on a half-hour program for a senior citizens center. Although a number of the songs we selected were familiar ones, we liked to set up our own arrangements or use "different" arrangements we found out about...one of the most powerful of these that I recall was singing the words of "Amazing Grace" to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun."

In more recent years, a military nurse friend and I had the privilege of leading a group of Vietnam Veterans in that same rendition in the midnight dark and hush at the Wall in Washington, DC.

I think of myself more as a singer than as a guitarist, although I do play some and have written a little sheaf of songs. As a singer, my voice is better suited to groups than to solo work...I love to harmonize.

The guitar has been in a closet for a few years. As of last week, I took it out, dusted it off, and after a few fumbling attempts to tune it from the third fret, my wits came back to me as well as my 6 known chords.

Thank you all for a wonderful Café site, it is a great pleasure to be here and to learn. And thank you, Allan C., for inviting me to check it out.

BarbaraLynn

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 04:21 AM

A churchwarden is a sort of pipe, but was named for the elected officer of a church or parish. One of our many jobs was to carry the wardens pole (or wand as we call it) that had a crown (for the state) or a mitre (for the church) on one end and a dirty great spike on the other. This was to escort dignitaries, like bishops or royalty/dignitaries into church, and the spike was for 'driving the dogs away from the door' and waking people up in the sermon. It was also a duty to go round to people's houses and find out why they weren't at church.....

I am not a pipe, neither do I have a hairy chest...... but I did have a rector who had a 950cc Suzuki and wore black leather riding gear under his cassock (long black dress that vicars wear.....)

There is a lot of traditional church music in my heritage, having been sent to Sunday School to get me out of the way of mother cooking dinner, and stayed to join the choir aged 9. Prefer Mozart and Holst to Graham Kendrick, but have performed both in front of Prince Charles.....

LTS

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 09:39 AM

BarbaraLynn, welcome! T.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Bill in Alabama
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 09:59 AM

Good Morning, Barbara Lynn--We're proud to have you join us.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: jeffp
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 10:19 AM

BarbaraLynn, welcome to the asylum run by the inmates! You'll find it's an odd lot of people (or a lot of odd people) who share more than music. I'm a fairly new member myself, and I haven't regretted it for an instant.

Jeffp

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Allan C.
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 10:26 AM

BarbaraLynn is a special friend with whom I have been recently reunited in cyberspace. I am glad to see her here at last and promise to teach her at least one more chord!

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 10:40 AM

Ah! Catters who are bikers as well! Sounds like a good subject for another thread!

mcmoo (Yamaha Virago)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Davey
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 11:04 AM

Well, my parents weren't too musical. I did listen to their Platters records over and over (not always by choice), and Johnny Horton's Greatest hits (over and over, the lyrics are firmly etched in my memory.
As a teemager, listened to a lot of country music on my transistor radio while I delivered newspapers.

Introduced to folk music, and guitar, by a friend I met after I left home and was working my first job. Haven't looked back...

Great to see the variety of experiences here.. Banjo B, you always manage to inject such feeling into your posts.

Davey... (:>)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Ely
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 04:58 PM

My father was a good cello and recorder player years ago (as in, when he was in high school). My mother has played the piano, recorder, and a little violin, and picked up some guitar in grad school. I guess they didn't play music so much as they always had records on. They played tapes in the car and sang songs so my brother and I wouldn't kill each other (one of the first I learned was "Joe Hill"--good stuff for a 5-year-old). And they insisted we both take piano lessons; I think the idea that I might one day be able to play Scott Joplin was the only thing that got me through (I can't yet). A lot of it was blues and folk music, and 1960's stuff: Bob Dylan, the Moody Blues, CCR, CSN&Y, Iron Butterfly, the Doors.

My brother and I went our separate ways musically when we got older; he likes Metallica and I like Norman Blake. We both still like Arlo Guthrie. Dad was thrilled to hear I'd pinched his Bessie Smith tapes to bring to college. I love old-timemusic (I'm the college floor-mate from Hell--addicted to banjo music).

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 03:17 PM

Growing up through the 1950's, 60's & 70's meant experiencing many diverse musical styles.

Part of the reason I've resurrected this thread is that lots of old 'pop' songs are re-emerging in singarounds all over the place.

Me & chums included have recently been doing Kinks, Stones, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Orbison, as well as the odd Bleats number.

Lots've other folkies are indulging in this behaviour too, d'ye think it maybe a continuing part of the 'folk' process?

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: topical tom
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 05:33 PM

My uncle played the fiddle at square dances and we used to take turns playing together.He taught me a couple of tunes to start me off.
    My mother used to sing songs all the time.She and my father used to quote poetry as well.My father was a wonderful man but he couldn't have carried a tune for his life. He used to love hearing my mother and I sing though.My mother played a little on the mouth organ and I learned to play a few tunes as well.
    I grew up on country music but switched to folk music upon hearing the artists of the day, i. e., Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Oscar Brand, etc. etc.
    I have never truly mastered an instrument but love to sing.